


After the Funeral

by howsharry



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because I can't stand it otherways, Eggsy's MIA, Eggsy's a little shit, Funeral, Grief, Harry's Alive, Harry's mourning, Harry's so done, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, MIA - Freeform, Major character death - Freeform, Post V-Day, bad timing, but not really, or Great Timing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howsharry/pseuds/howsharry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, after 18 days 19 hours and two extractions teams retuning from Siberia without their missing agent, Arthur has officially announced Eggsy dead. It's a mere formality, Harry tells himself, unbelieving of how anything could put this magnificient boy down, and finds himself doubting everything while carrying the empty casket across the cemetery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Funeral

Harry looked up to the sky, tears burning in his eyes, and the clouds just seemed to resemble his emotions. Grey, dark, menacing. 

Harry took a quick side glare to Merlin at his right who was just fighting with the tears as well, but less successfully. Or probably he was more relieved by them, a matter of perspective perhaps. 

To his left, Roxy was sobbing quietly. He didn’t need to look at her, he could feel the trembling and shuffling of their suits against each other. Harry could have lent a shoulder, or a hand to hold at least, but if he did - all good anners forgotten - he would admit it to himself. 

He would acknowledge Eggsy Unwin’s death, and he just couldn’t allow that to be the truth.

The casket, empty and strangely resembling a cradle, was being closed now as the pastor said his last words. Something about the missions their youngest agent had accomplished recently but no word for the one he had gotten lost in. Missing in Action and presumably dead by now. From experience, there was below 1% of a chance left. 

Presumably. Harry clung to that word but every time he told himself there was some still sort of probability no matter how small that his protégé was still alive, his head and especially the scar above his eye socket and what was left of his left ear began to hurt and itch. As if his own body, an ironically still so very alive organism, was telling him to stop deceiving himself. 

Harry swallowed hard and tried not to look at the last and painfully cheerful picture of Eggsy that stood next to the casket, surrounded by flowers and wreaths and candles of course.

The American branch, with whose agents Eggsy had seemed to stay in good contact, had sent some awful condolences. Harry had pushed them all to the non-important pile when he sorted through the younger man’s stuff, knowing that his young wouldn’t appreciate this if he was there. There was an awful lot of Americans here today, too. Somehow Harry despised their attendance although he knew how very well Eggsy’s bright mentality had resembled theirs. 

He took a sharp breath again and worked against the burning heat in his eyes. Don’t cry, don’t admit, he told himself while his throat tightened more and more. 

“Harry”, Merlin whispered, putting a hand on Harry’s that was fisting the fabric of his trousers. “Let it go.” 

Harry shook his head vehemently and could barely suppress a sob at his friend’s warm words. Merlin knew that he had not cried. Not when Eggsy was noted missing, not when they informed his mother after 12 dasys, not when he himself - being Arthur and responsible for his agents - announced him dead after the exact time of 18 days 19 hours and two extraction teams coming back from Siberia with empty hands. Not even when they arranged his funeral after almost four weeks. 

Although he wanted to cry, really. He wanted so desperately to break the dam and let go some of the tension and the doubts that had been torturing him since the first hour, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Announcing Eggsy’s death had been an pure act of formality, and besides that Harry knew wonders were possible. He was a walking one himself, wasn’t he? Coming back from the dead. If he was able to do that, his brilliant boy would be, too.

Harry closed his eyes and felt the first tear involuntarily running down his cheek with a painful slowness. Truly, he wanted to scream. Punch something. Shoot someone. Let go some steam about how wrong the world was. He knew what awaited him afterwards, though. An endless pit of misery. Eggsy wasn’t the first agent they’ve lost. 

“We have to go now”, Merlin whispered again and all three wiped their eyes hastily. Percival followed them, still quietly sniffing, as they took their positions on the empty casket. Roxy and Merlin, being the shorter ones, would lead them.

Harry’s head ached again as they lifted the heavy chest from the podium it had been sitting on for some hours now. Unfortunately enough, he knew what weight lacked from the wood to feel real. To make it feel like they really were accompanying their friend to his last rest. Like this had any purpose at all and wasn’t just a shallow symbol. It was horrifyingly inadequate to what Eggsy had really meant to them.

Carrying, crying, breathing, living...nothing had purpose without Eggsy in his life, Harry thought bitterly when they left the small house of mourning and began their way to the still empty grave. He didn’t really realize it all had been taken away from him until now. He missed Eggsy before, he missed him all the time since that awful day, but it didn’t feel real. Just now, the numb feeling developed into aggressive heart-wrenching pain.

Having the damn autumn leaves crush under his Oxfords and his knees trembling with painful agony felt very real now. The symbolism of the empty casket felt real. The mourning, tear-swollen eyes of his friends and colleagues did, too. 

Harry tripped, sudden weakness grasping his body like a seizure and making him open his mouth in what was equally a gasp and a sob.

“Can you walk?”, Percival whispered between his gritted teeth.

“It’s alright”, Harry answered and concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other. They reached a crossing and more people joined them from the side ways. People carrying flowers and pictures, mostly people he’d never seen before. 

It was when JB trotted beside him, coming out of the crowd, that he began to cry in streams. The little pug who was looking just as miserable as he did held his head high with pride and wiggled his tail as he always did. Harry couldn’t help but smile wryly at the small dog and his utter loyalty for Eggsy, unconquered by any grief and loss. Eggsy truly deserved a posture like this, regardless whether worn inside or out.

So Harry lifted his head, breathed through it and pointed his focus on the spot just above Merlin’s shoulder, where he could see the oncoming whole in the ground and the grey headstone. Gary Unwin, 1991 - 2015. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Proud tears dripped down Harry’s face finally, when they lowered the casket into the ground and threw dirt and blossoms after it. Them four stood beside and watched the others pass, laying down their respect to the grave. When the last one turned their back to them, Harry couldn’t hold it any longer.

A violent sob ruined his stillness and made his whole body tremble before he sank down into the dirt next to the still open grave with a defeated noise.

He screamed excruciatingly loud and hurt and no one dared to touch him for a moment, until two warm hands combed through the fog of his tears and steadied his shoulders. 

“It’s alright”, Merlin whispered and brushed his thumps over the fabric of Harry’s impeccable suit.

It wasn’t. Not at all. Harry pressed his palms into his eyes until he couldn’t stand the physical pain any longer. He had him, and he could have had all of this beautiful boy. More than a kiss. A lifetime of kisses, he knew it. 

And now there wasn’t even a body to say goodbye to.

The memory burned into his heart like the chaste lips had burned that Sunday night over a month ago. Harry wanted to un-know this creature and in the meanwhile put all he remembered of Eggsy into stone so dearly. He was jealous on death that had taken him so brutally but definitely not without a fight; he was jealous on the place Eggsy was now, whatever that was. Harry was passionate upon hating everything that ever lead to this day, every harm that someone ever caused to the boy and every minute that was taken from this outstanding young man.

“I can’t”, he said heavily, his throat still painfully tight with breathing. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s gone”, Merlin murmured. Phrases, Harry knew, to make the grief bearable. But he knew he could never bear loosing Eggsy. He would always miss his eyes and his laugh and those hands that had touched him like he was precious. It would always rip his heart out.

“Eggsy wouldn’t want you to suffer like that”, Roxy whispered somewhere near his ear. “You know that, Harry. You never wanted that for him either.”

Harry growled and wiped tears from his stinging eyes. “He should tell me in person then.” Bitterness is was now, yes? Fine, he would roll with it. As long as it kept him going until he could collapse into his chair at home and cry and drink himself to sleep. 

He pushed himself up and straightened his suit with trembling fingers, carded through his hair carefully and tried to regain his normal neutral expression but his friend’s looks reassured him that he wasn’t successful.

Percival swallowed, took his own protégé by the arm and lead her back to the funeral reception while Merlin guided Harry by the small of his back until the agent shook him off. 

Harry would kill for some liquor right now, preferably injected directly into his system. How can you lose what you love and not die right after it?

Like this, he thought, and leaned against the wall, watching the crowd in the room and enjoyed to be left alone, finally, and the numb feeling one gets after a violent cry. Everything dies, excruciatingly slowly and piece by piece until there is no matter left to be destroyed. 

The doors were kept open, it was a warm late September and the sun had burst through while the gravediggers had done their job and filled the hole in the ground with fresh, brown dirt.

Harry turned around, drawing away from the chatting guests and looking into the golden sun while he drew a heavy breath. Eggsy would have liked the weather. He would have liked going into the park, maybe he would have invited Harry and maybe he would have held his hand while his other was tucked deep into his trouser pockets and he told him a foolish joke. Right now he would trade everything for one more laugh from those lips. The way he wiggled his eyebrows and the way he had frowned just a little bit before he stepped forward and decided to invade Harry’s mind and make himself a home in his heart. 

Harry closed his eyes and swallowed, fighting back the tears again. He ran a hand over his face and allowed himself to debauch in those happy memories just a little longer. To fully embrace his grief and pain, before he had to shut it down again in his everyday life. That’s what funerals are there for, aren’t they? Not for the dead, certainly.They’re there for the remaining. 

A ringing sound woke Harry from his agony and made him point his eyes at the open doors again, where leaves were dancing and shuffling in the soft wind. Another ringing, definitely a bicycle bell by its sharp, bright sound. Who would ride a bicycle on a cemetery?, Harry thought tiredly and on the verge.

On the oncoming way he saw a silhouette, a man on a bike like he assumed, and he could hear him ringing his bell and laughing wildly. 

Harry’s heart stopped beating and then and, after a second, never beat that fast again.

“Hey mates, sorry to let you wait!”, the young man called, his voice as bright as this autumn day suddenly was. Harry would remember this moment for longer than he remembered his mother’s face: how the light shone through the blonde wisps of hair and lit his already flushed skin. His cheeky smile, no less dazzling than the rest.

Just after Eggsy gallantly jumped from his bike and let it carelessly roll away, Harry had left his drink splattered all over the floor and was on him with a muffled ‘hump’. 

“Harry”, Eggsy said surprised but soft and wrapped an arm around him in response.

“I knew it”, Harry breathed, eyes pressed close and nose smoothed into the younger man’s warm neck. “I knew you weren’t dead.” He gripped harder into the boy’s soft flesh so it wouldn’t slip from him again.

“’f course not. What did you think? That I let that fucking Russian shoot me with a crossbow made from human bone? That’s fucking mental.” He laughed again and Harry never felt something better resonate in his chest. “I killed him with a screwdriver, tough.”

Tears again gathered in Harry’s eyes and ran down his cheeks into Eggsy’s clothes. “You have no idea how much...”, Harry tried to say but broke off with a hoarse croak. His hands clung to Eggsy’s form like they were keeping him from drowning and quite literally they were. Everything hurt and throbbed and burned in his body, suddenly. He just held onto the boy and waited for the pain to subside.

“It’s okay”, Eggsy said, sounding a lot more serious now that he felt Harry’s body trembling under his fingers. “Don’t cry, Harry, please don’t.” 

Harry felt gentle fingers rubbing up and down his back understandingly. “You don’t have to cry, Harry.”

Finally, Eggsy looked up when he heard agitated voices from the house. Roxy stood in the entrance, a glass of wine threatening to slip through her fingers and her lips a bit apart, and behind her a crowd of gasping friends.

“Eggsy”, Merlin finally announced, stepping up from behind Roxy and smiled unbelievingly. 

They all looked incredibly happy at once. Their reddened eyes were shining again with hope, and the crowd flowed down the small steps onto the cemetery way and surrounded Eggsy within a mere second. Roxy embraced him from the side because Harry was clinging to his front and still sobbed uncontrollably. Merlin solemnly put a hand on his Eggsy’s shoulder and ran another over Harry’s shaking back but removed himself shortly after. Eggsy’s more distant friends were surprised and by all means shocked with the not-so-dead-Unwin. Some, like Harry, happily screamed “I knew it” and tugged him into a hug, too.

Eggsy wished he had a moment to calm Harry, who was now slowly extracting himself from Eggsy’s arms and backed off into the crowd while wiping his nose on his sleeve. His eyes were empty and glazed, his hands were still shaking, but he managed to leave the crowd without another word or look and vanished into the house, treading softly like a ghost.

“Okay, guys, we’ll sort this mess out inside”, Eggsy suggested and lead the crowd back into the room where he grabbed something from the buffet and sat down between Roxy and Merlin on a couch.

“So...”, he began, searching for the right words because they were all waiting for an explanation. He didn’t see Harry, who in the meanwhile pressed himself flat against the outer door frame, holding a hand onto his mouth to prevent himself from sobbing. “I guess you’re all curious how I managed to...you know...”

“Not to be dead”, Merlin snorted, grabbing Eggsy by the wrist and scanning the microchip embedded into his skin with his smart phone.

“Long story, eh, but no, not really. After we lost connection, I managed to escape from captivity and those grumpy blokes. Still, eastern Siberia has no fucking signal whatsoever.” He winked nonchalantly and Roxy had almost kicked him in the shinbone if she hadn’t been so shocked to see her best friend alive again. 

Eggsy sighed. “I’m sure you all had a great ceremony, though”, he turned to Merlin, “which song did you play? I hope the one I suggested!”

Merlin looked at him with unbelieving eyes. “No, we didn’t play ‘Hooked on a feeling’, for fuck’s sake, Eggsy.”

“Glad to be home”, Eggsy replied and turned to a bright smile Merlin could not reflect fully.

The Kingsman staff that had attended his funeral altogether looked pretty fed up with the whole situation. Knowing the young Galahad, they really could have guessed likewise. Eggsy could hear them murmur “what a fucking bastard” in their little heads and he loved it.

“You’ve been hasty with calling me dead”, Eggsy remarked when the group, partly intoxicated with relieve and partly but silently swearing at him, distributed itself in the room again to make most out of the food at least. 

Merlin tilted his head while tapping coordinates into his phone. “You think that, yes?” He sounded more annoyed than he would have liked, but Roxy took over from him.

“We really did not”, she said seriously and looked down at him. “What fucking took you so long from Russia to London?”

“I...err..”

“Fucked another princess?”

“God, no”, Eggsy retorted, obviously offended. “The tundra really is big, didn’t they tell you that in school?” 

Roxy looked at him even more startled. “You didn’t put us all into mourning your death because you were afraid of Harry? Because you kissed him?” She started slapping his arm, harder with every second he wouldn’t answer. “Because you’re a fucking toe dipper?”

“No!”, he tried to defend himself. “I had to go undercover for two weeks because of those bastards, they wouldn’t let me get over the border without at least a bullet to the head. And frankly, we’ve had enough of that in the family already.”

Roxy didn’t look amused, not at all, and she definitely didn’t believe him fully. Merlin on the other side didn’t care and turned around to face him with a deep frown. “What did you do to your fucking tracker, Galahad?”

“I...err...they shocked me quite good. A few times. Never thought I'd outlast the chip.”

“You okay now?”, Roxy breathed deeply. “No injuries?”

“I’m alive and kicking”, he smiled.

Roxy’s face turned dark again, while Merlin turned back to his phone. “Then fucking go off and search Harry now, for god’s sake”, he mumbled. 

Roxy looked, too, as if she was going to cry again and he was sure Merlin himself didn’t work through the trauma yet, although Eggsy was sure he wasn’t the first agent Merlin had lost, but they would have each other now. While Harry was sulking alone somewhere, the dramatic wanker. 

“He went that way”, Roxy pointed and sunk back into the cushion where Merlin promptly put a hand on her tired shoulder. “We’ll talk later.”

“’f course”, he answered less cheeky than before and made his way through the crowd. There were two doors going from the hallway, but in the end he found Harry sitting on the staircase in front of the back entrance. 

He looked at Eggsy as the young man silently sat down next to him close enough for their shoulders to touch, and his eyes were less numb now and far more reddened. 

“I’m so sorry”, Eggsy started, seeing and realizing at once how worn out Harry was.

“You’re alive”, Harry said again and Eggsy remembered something of himself in that truly relieved and simultaneously so exhausted expression. “I suppose everything is okay now.” It didn’t sound like it was at all.

“You stupid fucker”, Eggsy murmured and slung his arms around Harry’s creased figure. “Don’t be melodramatic now, okay? Just let me hug it out.”

“Hug it out?” Harry leaned into Eggsy’s touch nonetheless and breathed heavily. 

“I didn’t escape 20 angry, armed Russian bears to let you question my methods”, Eggsy replied with a chuckle and pressed his face into Harry’s hair. He really fucking missed his Arthur. And his dimples and stupid perfect curls. 

“I’m not fully realizing it all”, Harry whispered and let Eggsy gently play with his hair. A thing, Eggsy had thought until now, he would only let him do on his death bed. “Not dead, suddenly very dead and then alive again”, Harry breathed with a suppressed sigh. 

“I was never dead, if that’s helping.”

“Did you call your mother?”, Harry asked suddenly, raising a bit from Eggsy’s hold.

“Yeah, course I did, she’s preparing a premature Christmas dinner right now to celebrate the day”, Eggsy murmured and tucked him back in. “She’s fine as long as she’s busy.” What a perfect gentlemen Harry still was, despite his destroyed state, Eggsy thought ironically. “Just relax, okay? Come down, tell me what you feel or anything.”

“What I feel?”

“Or anything”, Eggsy emphasized. 

It was easy to be intimate after one of them thought the other one dead for some weeks, Eggsy realized with a faint bitterness. They couldn’t get it together the 'normal way' of courting and dating so far, therefore naturally one of them had to get into lethal danger so the other one would express what he felt. It had been like that after Harry had woken from the coma and their relationship changed from mentoring to being close friends, including regular overnight stays at Harry’s house and a lot of really bad ‘classics’ from Harry’s movie library.

And now, after a seven hours flight from Moscow to Berlin to London, he found himself holding the heaviest and probably most miserable creature he’d ever held before.

“You didn’t stay away that long because of our...-”

“Oh, fucking stop already”, Eggsy growled and huffed jokingly. “How could you think that?”

“I was very confused myself. Until now I regarded myself as a fairly good kisser”, Harry said dryly.

“You’re a fucking fantastic kisser”, Eggsy mumbled against the older man’s ear shell and planted a small kiss on Harry’s temple. “I had to go undercover, that’s what took me so long.”

Harry raised from Eggsy’s chest again and checked his body with worried eyes.

”Are you hurt?”

“Everything’s alright. Like I just said to Rox: our image would suffer under to many bullets embedded in our agent’s heads.”

The smile Eggsy had hoped for didn’t curdle on Harry’s lips but at least he snorted faintly. 

“What a day”, Harry sighed, running a hand down his tired face. “Don’t ever do this to me again.”

“We’re even-stephen.”

Harry snorted again. It was beautiful. 

Harry let Eggsy take his and rub his thumb over his palm until he didn’t feel like being ripped apart anymore. 

“Can we go home?”, Harry finally said lowly and managed it without sounding pathetic at all. Just very exhausted.

“Yes, of course”, Eggsy then mumbled and pulled Harry by the hand, “Roxy and Merlin are still waiting for me to prove that you didn’t run away in terror from my sight..”

Hesitating shortly, Harry stood up, too, and followed him back into the house. 

“Where are we going, exactly?”, Harry asked, still holding Eggsy’s hand tight on the way down the cemetery way. ‘Home’ hadn’t been a very specific place, just somewhere else than the cold steps underneath them. Maybe a place with a shower and some tea and more comfortable furniture.

“Maybe we could go to your place?”, Eggsy suggested quietly and smiled at the positive surprise in Harry’s eyes. “Couldn’t stand my mum mother henning all over me now.”

“What do you think I’m going to do from now on?”, Harry said dryly, lifting an eye brow delicately followed by drawing a deep, relieved breath. He stopped in his path and slung an arm around the boy, tucking his face into the crook of Eggsy’s neck. 

“Oh, come on now”, Merlin, who emerged from behind them, huffed, while he was still growing more angry at his smart phone for not being on the level of his surveillance system in HQ. He seemed to burn to know what had slipped his notice in those weeks. 

Harry drew away and allowed Eggsy to put an arm around his waist as they walked to the entrance of the cemetery. 

Eggsy kissed him, when they sat in the cab on the way to Harry’s house. And Harry melted into the touch of the younger man’s lips on his cheek and the tender fingers carefully touching his deformed earlobe. He closed his eyes and let Eggsy wipe away the last burning tears he would shed that day. Harry let Eggsy care for him like he had always imagined himself doing just that for his boy. It was just as heavenly. 

He was relatively okay again after the hot shower and almost happy when he found Eggsy down in the kitchen afterwards, staring at the ceiling to where he had just dispatched a pancake.

“I’m going to say this now”, Harry began slowly, drawing Eggsy’s attention towards him and away from the half-raw doe. “You have surely realized how many guests attended your funeral this morning. Maybe you thought this was all somehow funny, because you are sometimes just a boy”, he continued with a small smile tugging at his lips, “Just as I’ve been a boy one in another boy’s arms just on those stone steps before, but maybe you, too, realized that you are loved by many people. And I think you are not only deserved to be shown that at your fucking funeral, but on every day of your life.”

Harry felt flustered and hot and fond all the same, but he was most surprised at Eggsy’s sad face with those bright, attentive eyes. An expression that didn’t seem to make sense and still did not when the half-done pancake smacked back to the floor behind the boy.

“I love you, just so you know”, Harry finally ended his monologue and sighed heavily. 

“How convenient”, Eggsy replied dryly but a grin lifted the corners of his mouth already.

“Don’t ever get off-grid again, okay?”, Harry whispered harshly as he took a fast step forward and pulled the boy in on his chest. “Don’t do this.”

“No, I won’t. You cry an awful lot when I do”, Eggsy said with a rough voice and pressed his lips to Harry’s, swallowing half of his sentence. Harry savoured the boy’s mouth, treating it the soft skin like something extremely breakable and fragile before Eggsy broke away again. 

“And I love you, too. Just so you get an idea of what”, Eggsy wiggled his brows with a cheeky grin, “I’m expecting from....this. Ya, know. Lot’s of taking me out to posh places and hot sex en masse.” There was the cheeky brat again, Harry internally rolled his eyes.

“Oh dear god, shut up already”, Harry huffed ironically and silenced the boy by pressing their mouths together again. “Or I’ll have you sent back to the tundra.”

“Harry, I lost three toes there already...”, Eggsy laughed, slightly out of breath from their kissing. Harry shortly thought about checking for himself while slowly undressing the boy. Be calm, my heart, he held himself back with anticipation.

“You can tell that Merlin, unavoidable property manage is his responsibility.”

Harry leaned in again and pressed Eggsy against the kitchen counter, letting his hands slide down the boy’s sides. 

It was a shit day, but there were a thousand promising ones to follow.


End file.
